Telecom_Dirt said:
My scenario is convoluted..grey matter..
Okay, this first part is going to sound unsympathetic:
1. You sold your house before being posted. Possibly in anticipation of a posting, but nonetheless, before the system kicked in. This is your risk. It is unfortunate that no one warned you of this.
2. Any fees you paid as part of selling the house should have been anticipated as a 'loss'. This should have been factored into the sale price when you sold it. Every homeowner does this. Any financial decisions made with the expectation that the loss could be recouped are erroneous. Such things should always be regarded as a 'bonus', not an entitlement.
3. I slap you on the wrist for allowing yourself to get 'way too busy'. Your financial stability and associated lifestyle is too important to let slide and hope that someone else will take care of it. The CF system is not a babysitter service, and you must ensure you look after yourself.
Okay, something actually helpful.
1. Do you have a copy of the last policy issued stating a '2-year window'?
2. When did you sell your house and when did the new policy come into effect? Establish the time difference between the two.
3. Did a new policy package get issued prior to your selling that said it was now a '1-year window'? Did they announce that a change was going to occur, or did they slip it in unannounced? Did they notify all CF members? Did you get a copy? Why didnt you get a copy? Were you away on a deployment or posting and did not have access to these updates? The point here is to try and establish that there was no
reasonable way for you to be aware of an upcoming or current policy change and that you were acting on the informatino they made available. If the new policy came out more than one month before you sold your house, you need to establish that you were not given access to or denied this information. If youre going to claim the system failed you, you need to prove the system failed you.
4. Get copies of current changes. Try to find out if the same distribution errors that occurred last time happened again. This can support points you made earlier.
5. Review previous denials. Address each denial point in your redress and state clearly and specifically why the denial is invalid (in your opinion anyway).
6. Be prepared to write a detailed lengthy report giving all the facts. Attach all important documents. Expect to have this memo take a while to be processed, and repeated at every step (and the document grows with each step). Use the right terminology as well, identify that this is an exceptional circumstance and/or unique situation.
7. Clarify the current chain of appeal for this type of report. This may be outside of the regular chain, due to the outsourced company. Start fresh at the bottom wrung and as each response period expires, send it to the next higher level. Be prepared to make a lot of follow up phone calls to find out the status of your submission.
8. Anticipate failure. This doesnt always work, so try to correct your financial situation
now so that you are not waiting for this money to save you. In the end you still have to keep living and although the loss of thousands of dollars is a hard hit, theres a lot worse things that could have happened to you.
